From sheep to shawl: visitors witness an ancient art

Visitors to Pricketts Fort on Saturday, May 14th, were able to witness an archaic activity from the eighteenth century which, in its essentials, has changed little from Biblical times: the manufacture of a woolen garment from sheep to finished product First, the shearing of the sheep with hand shears, resulting at the end of the [...]

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Two fine-looking fleeces

With winter past and warm weather looming, the time had come around at last for the two lambs, Esther and Jemima, to be initiated into the mysteries of the Sheep Boutique. It was shearing day on the old fort grounds. Esther was first, and it would take three of us and half a day to [...]

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Sheep to Shawl Day at Pricketts Fort this Saturday, May 15.

Join us inside the fort on Saturday, May 15, 2010, from 10 am to 4:30 pm, for demonstrations of shearing, washing, drying, picking, carding, spinning, plying, and weaving. A shawl created during the event will be auctioned off on West Virginia Day, June 20, 2010. Raffle tickets will be available at the Visitor Center for [...]

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Idyllic days on the old Virginia frontier . . .

It’s not all tomahawk throwing & telling tall tales around the campfire out here on the romantic Virginia frontier, not by a long shot …. Day to day life at the fort is just a bit more prosaic. Take Two Hawks here, passing an idyllic Spring morning mucking out the sheep pen — ah, that [...]

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From Sheep to Shawl: visitors witness the entire process, start to finish…

Visitors to Pricketts Fort on Saturday, May 16th, were able to witness an archaic activity from the eighteenth century which, in its essentials, has changed little from Biblical times: the manufacture of a woolen garment from sheep to finished product First, the shearing of the sheep with hand shears, resulting at the end of the [...]

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Sheep to Shawl Day, this Saturday, May 16

Our new lambs say: “Come watch how sheep are sheared and then see the various processes involved in preparing wool including carding, spinning and weaving!” Regular admission applies. Contact: info@prickettsfort.org, 304-363-3030.

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Frontier nativity scene

At the original Nativity, sheep were only innocent bystanders, witnesses to a mystery they could not comprehend. At the Pricketts Fort stable, however, the infant at the center of attention was herself a sheep. And the day of her birth was not Christmas, but Easter (hence her name, “Esther”). And don’t her parents, Atticus and [...]

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Bringing in the corn . . .

I began bringing in the corn a few days ago.  We had planned to leave it on the stalks to dry completely, until the end of the season if necessary, but then we found two large gourds lying on the grass some distance from the field, where someone had evidently thrown them.  When I went [...]

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Picking wool

On a recent warm afternoon, Judy Wilson takes a bundle of wool (from a Shetland-cross, not one of the fort’s sheep) and sits outside in hopes of catching the odd breeze. Picking involves pulling the wool apart, “opening” it in preparation for carding, loosening any tangles and allowing bits of chaff, hay and debris to [...]

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The newest fort residents

Recently a new structure appeared in the sheep pen: almost a kind of treehouse. Greg did the preliminary work on it, and Charlie, a local farmer a and frequent volunteer at the fort, finished the structure. It turned out to be a chicken coop, and as soon as it was finished four hens — two [...]

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